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Posted May 28, 2014 04:53 pm

'Healing' Memorial Day lantern launch to be annual for Jacksonville

People who attended the recent Jacksonville Memorial Light Festival wrote peace messages and remembrances on rice paper and wood lanterns, which were then briefly launched into the St. Johns River yacht basin the night of Memorial Day.

A memorial lantern is launched from Yacht Basin Park, as part of the inaugural Jacksonville Memorial Light Festival.

The enthusiasm of people who attended the inaugural Jacksonville Memorial Light Festival, held on Memorial Day in Riverside, led organizers to seek volunteers for a larger event next year.

Friends Amy Moore and Keith Marks envisioned the launch of memorial lanterns, made of wood and rice paper, into a basin off the St. Johns River as something inspiring. And it was, said Moore.

"Keith and I were touched by the healing energy ... and the enthusiasm of our participants," she said. "Having seen the beautiful possibilities ... we are incredibly excited and encouraged to create a full-scale annual Memorial Light Festival, so that we can share this beautiful and therapeutic experience with even more of Jacksonville.

"The event, from start to finish, had an unmistakable feeling of this kind of quiet reverence," she said.

About 80 people attended the event at Yacht Basin Park off St. Johns Avenue. They wrote peace messages and remembrances on the lanterns' rice paper, accompanied by musician Goliath Flores, who sat under a tree and strummed guitar songs, Moore said.

As night fell, the lanterns were launched into the basin, as the crowd remembered friends and family they had lost and collectively wished for peace. A team of kayakers made sure the lanterns did not float further out into the St. Johns River and later collected them.

Moore said one woman left a note for the organizers that said "simply, 'Thank you for this,' which struck me as a lovely and unassuming message that felt appropriate for the tone of the event."

She and Marks are seeking volunteers to help plan and execute the larger 2015 followup. To signup, go to bit.ly/1k41Wm6.

Also, they will post photos from this year's event and developments about the next one on a newly created Facebook page, facebook.com/jaxlightfest.

The lantern festival idea stemmed from when Moore lived in Hiroshima, Japan. She was intrigued by a particular part of the city's Peace Memorial Ceremony, staged where the world's first atomic bomb was dropped.

A highlight of that event was the nighttime launching of lanterns to float on the waters of the Motoyasu River. The lanterns featured peace messages and were intended to memorialize not just the blast victims but others who had passed on, she said.